WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear famed law professor and attorney Alan Dershowitz’s defamation suit against CNN, upholding long-standing protections news media enjoy when covering public figures.
Having lost in lower courtsDershowitz had asked the justices to revisit the landmark 1964 ruling The New York Times v. Sullivan, who held that there had to be evidence of “actual malice” on the part of a news organization for a public figure to bring a defamation action.
The court declined to hear the case, a decision with which conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch disagreed. Thomas wrote in a brief dissent that the standard for proving a genuine allegation of malice is too “high.”
“The ‘actual malice’ standard for public figures “has no bearing on the text, history, or structure of the Constitution,” Thomas wrote.
A CNN spokesperson declined to comment.
Dershowitz told NBC News in an email that the only question is “whether we are able to prove malice by clear and convincing evidence – a nearly impossible burden. I believe the Court will eventually change that standard.”
The underlying allegation stems from Dershowitz’s representation of President Donald Trump during the first of two impeachment trials, which took place in 2020. The Senate trial, in which Trump was acquittedcame after the House impeached Trump for pressuring Ukraine to investigate then-former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.
Dershowitz accused CNN of inaccurately reporting comments he made during the trial about why a president can be impeached.
The case gave the justices, some of whom had already criticized the Sullivan decision, an opportunity to overturn or weaken it.
Such a move would have dealt a blow to media organizations, making them more vulnerable to costly litigation from deep-pocketed public figures, including politicians, celebrities and business moguls.
THE Sullivan decision held that in defamation cases involving such people, they must prove actual malice – that the false allegation was made “with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard as to whether it was false or not.”
Dershowitz’s lawyers argued in his 300 million dollars is suitable for this CNN commentators falsely claimed that he said during the impeachment trial that a president could not be impeached even if a criminal act was committed. In fact, Dershowitz said acts of “pure corruption” intended to personally benefit a president are impeachable, the lawyers said in court papers.
Dershowitz’s broader argument was that Trump should not be impeached for his conduct in Ukraine because it was not intended to benefit his private interests. His analysis was widely criticized by legal experts.
CNN’s lawyers note that the network aired Dershowitz’s remarks in full and, after he complained, put him on air twice to explain his position.
A federal judge in Florida and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta both ruled against Dershowitz, saying the “actual malice” standard had not been met, even though there were omissions in the CNN commentary.
Dershowitz was a longtime professor at Harvard Law School and had a long list of high-profile clients as an attorney, including OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected previous attempts to overturn the Sullivan decision. Thomas and Gorsuch have previously indicated that it should be reconsidered – a position Thomas argued for years.
